


When the Dust has Settled

by Apple_Fairy



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 09:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apple_Fairy/pseuds/Apple_Fairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A scene of Fukawa after one of the murders, a look see at what it means to be left with the aftermath and an unstable mind you don't want.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Dust has Settled

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from Tumblr. I wanted to write something to explore the character of Fukawa.

She first wakes up in the shower. With the jerk back of her head, and the tingling of her nose, the aftermaths of a sneeze. Touko blinks for a bit, confused.

She doesn’t remember how she got here.

She feels the chills run up her spine, the feeling of a lurch in her stomach and her body instinctually knows what happened. However, she doesn’t want to acknowledge it, doesn’t want to trust her instincts. She has an inkling, but that’s not what she wants to believe, so she places hands over her ears, trying to block out a loud mind that knows better, and she stares at the tile on the walls. She examines its gleam and shine, and watches the water cascade down its side, and the water is warm on her. She does not look down to her thin, bony body, because she knows what she will see and she does not want to see it.

She wants to believe this time Syo didn’t do anything. It’s fine. No one was hurt. Just another day, perhaps others saw her acting strangely and that was all. (And it wouldn’t change anything for everyone thought she was strange anyway, what else is new.)

She shuts her eyes so hard it hurts, and she focuses on the sound of the shushing shower, on the steam that eats at her lungs. It’s fine, no one was hurt, it has to be fine, it has to be.

But she knows better. Bitter pessimist such as herself, of course she knows better, she knows it’s never that easy.

What brings her back is a smell and she slowly opens her eyes. Looking at the tile below her, she sees the blood swirling down the drain.

It feels like a punch to the stomach, a stab in her heart.

_No._

Her eyes travel up herself, over bony awkward knees and pale legs, and it’s on her thigh that she sees where the blood is coming from. There’s a dull ache on the side, and her head begins to spin. Even without her glasses she can make out the carving of the character.

Another one down.

_No, no, no._

She’s picturing a smiling face. A pretty boy, named Tetsuhiro, seventeen years old, who she watched wistfully from afar because life had taught her better than to get closer. She remembers dreaming about him. She remembers writing about him. She remembers hating girls who got close to him, she remembers thinking _he must think I’m ugly_.

Looking at herself now she felt ugly again.

Her breathing becomes hard. It begins to hurt. She wants to cry out, but she doesn’t know what time it is, and who’s home, and if the evidence has been cleared up. She recognizes the shower as hers; she takes comfort in that.

Touko turns off the shower, and the bathroom is deathly silent. All she hears is her shallow breath.

 _Not again_.

She shuts her eyes, wills the world away.

_Please just die already._

The humid air holds her and she opens her eyes. Her mind is set to work and she stumbles out with weak legs, with a fresh wound. She sees the cleaned scissors by the sink. At least Syo is smart about her work, a perfect serial killer.

(But a serial killer nonetheless, Touko thinks bitterly.)

She ignores them and ignores the bloody clothes on the floor, reminding herself to clean those later. She didn’t want to get caught for a crime some parasite inside her committed, so she was always attentive to these matters.

(If she was a pure girl she’d give herself up, and play the martyr.)

(She’s not, though.)

She wipes the fog from the mirror and stares at the dead eyes, and the wet, scraggly hair. She grabs her glasses from the counter and slipping them on her world is in cloud again, and she’s thankful for a part of her doesn’t want to see.

Stepping into her bedroom, the world clears again, and Touko notices it’s night. Her house is quiet, and surely her parents must be asleep, thank god.

(She doesn’t want to think about them, because that’s a whole other headache.)

Her tiny heart is still thumping away madly as she picks out clothes, and slips them on. Her breathing is still ragged. She keeps pushing the thoughts away, shoving them aside, screaming at them to leave her alone, terrible things they are. Don’t look at me, don’t talk to me, die, die, die.

She keeps thinking of him.

She needs to stop thinking of him.

(There’s an ounce of regret, a pound of pity, and ten thousand tons of attempting not to care.)

Touko leans against the wall of her moonlit bedroom, and shuts her eyes closed, gripping her head. Her heart’s too fast, and the world’s too fast, and she feels herself panicking.

_Why does this keep happening to me, why does that horrible girl exist, why doesn’t she just die already._

_Die, die, die._

She’d like to claw at her face, she’d like to scream at her, she’d like to choke her and be done with it.

She hates herself and the person inside herself.

This vicious cycle of thoughts keep spinning around her, catching her in its breeze, and she’s being swept away. There’s no one who could understand, and no one to talk to, and Touko is drowning.

Deeper, deeper, deeper.

She swears she hears her laughter. Obnoxious, giddy laughter.

 _Shut up_.

It’s louder. It’s mocking her.

_Shut up, shut up, shut up!_

This isn’t her. This can’t be her. There’s got to be a way to silence her, the thoughts, the situation.

Her body knows exactly what to do.

It’s mechanical, but it’s comforting. It falls into the usual routine as she walks to her desk, and turns on her computer. It waits impatiently as she opens the program, and her fingers are obedient and understanding as they begin to type.

Touko forgets by writing.

_She’s reminded of him by the sea…_

The words just flow out. They always have, and they fall neatly into place. She deletes some here and there, re-words some passages, struggles with dialogue. But her plot is flowing out of her and on the page and she forgets. As she describes the love interest, he’s a pretty boy with a pretty smile, and he’s seventeen years old.

It was the closest way she’d get to saying sorry.

She doesn’t know how much longer this will go on. She doesn’t know who’s the next victim. She doubts she can save the next one. She doubts even more that she’ll ever get a happy ending.

But it comforts her that she can at least write one, that she can create one.

She likes that she can escape.


End file.
